Perhaps this is why no Cabinet minister has spoken out about America's decision - while negotiating the second stage of the so-called 'open skies' international aviation agreement - to continue restricting foreigners such as ourselves from owning more than 25 per cent of the shares in a U.S. airline. While they can buy 49 per cent of ours.

The extradition arrangements between the UK and the U.S. are also lop-sided. They demand - and receive - the right to extradite more or less anyone from the UK, while making it almost impossible for us to bring American crooks here for trial.

They encouraged Irish nationalism in Ulster and provided a safe haven - as well as tens of millions in aid - for the IRA terrorists who killed and maimed thousands in northern Ireland.

They orchestrated the 'peace process' whereby the political spokesmen for the terrorists were bribed with jobs in government. The only thing special about the 'special relationship' has been its one-sidedness.

Americans are told they bailed us out in two world wars, not that we paid fantastic over-the-odds sums for the equipment we bought from them.

They're also told that they protected us from communism during the Cold War, not that America colonised Europe with military bases so that any conventional war with the Soviet Union would be fought on our soil rather than theirs.

The Cold War is over, but they still have military bases projecting U.S. power from here. They have fought wars in Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan in the belief that this was protecting the U. S. homeland.

Abraham Lincoln said Americans could never believe the U.S. could be occupied by foreigners: 'Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined with all the treasure of the earth could not by force take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a thousand years.'

The doctrine of American exceptionalism - first noted by a visiting European, the French Count Alexis de Tocqueville, in 1831 - holds that the USA is different from other nations because it is a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy.

Accordingly, the U.S. will never accept equal-status relationships, far less a 'special' one. It's happy to have foreigners prosecuted for war crimes, but doesn't recognise the judicial institution involved, the International Court. This is their business, not ours.

But our leaders are wrong to indulge the 'special relationship' myth. It isn't being straight with the electorate.

The former Tory Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said Britain 'punches above its weight' in world affairs.

In reality, we can punch only when America summons us to one of its tag fights. The latest from Afghanistan illustrate our lowly staus.

American Marines will replace our troops in Helmand Province, where 248 British troops have been killed since 2006. Our commanders fear this might be portrayed as 'an admission of defeat'.

In other words, we'll lose face. That sums up the war perfectly - and our special relationship.

Party time: Business Secretary Lord Mandelson danced with members of a Nigerian band in a South London pub

Mandy, boastful Lord of the Dance

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson danced with four, male members of a Nigerian 'talking drummers' band as they punctuated the bullet points of a speech he made in a South London pub, the Sun And Doves, Camberwell.

He said Gordon Brown stopped our economy going over a cliff (neglecting to mention GB got it there in the first place) and continued: 'And I'll tell you something else: Gordon Brown got me back just in the nick of time, thank you very much, as he was disappearing over that cliff.'

Brown's reliance on Peter Mandelson alone is surely enough to disqualify him from being Prime Minister.

Here is the colleague he rejected and feuded with after Mandelson chose to back Tony Blair for the leadership.

Then, in desperation, he calls back the twice-disgraced minister, elevates him to the House of Lords and puts him in charge of practically everything in the hope this will make his luck change. There is no greater political volte face in living memory.

Peer pressure for Prescott

John Prescott is being pressurised by his wife, Pauline, to accept a peerage so she can become Lady Prescott, we are informed by the Sunday Times.

'It's not exactly John's natural habitat, but she loves the idea of being known as Lady P.

'After everything she's been through - [a reference to him canoodling at work with his diary secretary Tracey Temple] - it's probably the least he can do.'

If politicians are due a peerage - for their scandalised wives - after sleeping with their diary secretaries, we'll need to extend the Palace of Westminster.

But real Republicans never complain when political clowns are ennobled. They know the whole apparatus will collapse eventually under the accumulated weight of ridicule.

The polls still suggest a hung Parliament. We don't really know what to expect from the Tories, but you can't say this of Labour.

So how could anyone who has lived through the past 13 years vote Labour again?

Lots of reasons. They're a state employee. They depend on welfare. They're beneficiaries of certain, targeted Government allowances.

They fear the Tories will tinker with the intricate system of voter-bribery we call democracy.

Add this to those who vote purely on a tribal basis and you can see why the election might be close. But surelythey can't get away with it again.

Grigori Perelman, 43, who has solved a problem which vexed mathematicians for a century, refused to accept a $1million prize, even though he lives modestly with his elderly mother in a two-bedroom rented flat on a dilapidated St Petersburg housing estate.

Turning down a previous award, he said he wasn't interested in money and didn't want people staring at him 'like I'm a creature in a zoo'.

If he got a set of robes and began wandering around the Middle East in sandals, we could have a new religion on our hands - or, a back-to-basics reworking of an old one. I'd like to know what he makes of Alistair Darling's Budget.

Uma Thurman in Motherhood, which cost £5million to make

Motherhood, the latest film starring Uma Thurman - which cost $5million to make - was seen by only one paying customer on the first day it opened in London, it's reported.

Takings for the weekend were £88. Although the reviews were bad, film expert Barry Norman says: 'It's a reasonable assumption there was a marketing and advertising catastrophe, and people didn't know it was showing.'

No doubt, he is right, but I can't say I'd have trekked to the Apollo in Piccadilly Circus (about two miles in my case) to see a movie about 'stressed-out Manhattan parenting'.

The plot: Eliza, played by Uma, has to give a party for her six-year-old daughter, mind her toddler son, find a parking space, mend a rift with a friend and enter a contest run by a parenting magazine, writing 500 words on 'What Does Motherhood Mean to Me?'

By the end, 'she rediscovers her own voice and realises what is truly valuable in her life'. Straight to video - and on to car-boot sale.

Did Obama talk up Tiger?

Now 79, the BBC's golf commentator Peter Alliss isn't afraid to say what he thinks about Tiger woods's decision to play in The Masters at Augusta National in two weeks' time.

He tells The Times: 'It either shows they have a desire to be helpful or a weakness. It would have been rather grand - but you would have perpetuated the stupidity of it - if they had said: "Sorry, we don't want your sort here." Personally, I think it's a little bit cowardly.'

Might their 'weakness' be President Obama? The President is known to have spoken encouragingly to Woods.

Although it's the snootiest golf course in the world - and was segregated not so long ago - Augusta National officials might not want to upset a U.S. President.